Slack doesn’t have a specific meeting feature but is very handy for messaging style meetings.

Slack actively advertise what does and doesn’t work when it comes to meetings. Brainstorming meetings schedule a 30-minute slot and assign the brainstorm to a channel. At the appointed time, have a facilitator prompt the group and let the ideas fly.

With these apps offering different meeting styles, it’s inevitable that you are going to cross over at some point.

What happens when you’re a Slack user and you get a Microsoft Teams meeting invite?

You still have to download the plugin or join online anyway. Comparing Slack vs Microsoft Teams doesn’t really solve the problem of true meeting collaboration today.

Collaboration

Ultimately, these apps are designed to enhance collaboration in business. There is no primary runner in collaboration.

Because of the strength and depth of all both vendors, we often see a mixture of both these apps in enterprises.

Requiring a deep set of features is one pre-requisite for Microsoft and Slack. The other is genuinely enhancing the collaboration experience.

Whilst they all do on their own, sometimes it takes a combination of these apps – and then a bunch of third-party integrations too.

NoJitter research from summer 2018 suggested enterprises are best at adopting this mentality.

Larger Equals MoreThree or more team collaboration apps are in use in enterprises. The larger the company, the greater the chance of multiple apps in use.

To achieve true collaboration, there is no catch-all platform. Even if there was, personal preference would likely get in the way. Forcing collaboration onto users almost always drives failure.

People resent forced collaboration when they aren’t given clear evidence as to why the players make sense. Collaborations that come together naturally are often best because everyone understands what everyone else is bringing to the table.

Existing software

Since publishing this post, Agile IT posted an article titled “Why HipChat Users Should Migrate to Microsoft Teams (Instead of Slack).”

Agile IT makes some good points. For the price of Slack Plus, you can get an entire Office 365 license.

But, with the increasing popularity of Google’s productivity suite, how relevant is this?

Businesses that have opted for Google and/or Mac are unlikely to see Office 365 as a pro to purchasing Microsoft Teams over Slack.

Integrations are mentioned next.

Correctly, Agile IT points out there is a huge amount of integrations associated with both platforms. Another pro for both platforms.

However, the negative associated with Slack only hosting ten integrations on the freemium model isn’t that bad either. If you are running the freemium version, you probably don’t need ten integrations. Slack has thought this through.

All in one

Take the laptop – an indisputable game changer in the personal computing world. Then ask yourself these questions:

Do they work best when they are left alone?

Is the experienced enhanced when you plug something else in?

Would everyone be productive if they all had the same laptop?

When defining the tools you need to productively conduct a job, it’s easy to opt for an all in one solution.

But, you likely end up with several all-in-one solutions that each does bits of what you were trying to achieve.

Defining what your all in one solution needs to do is part and parcel of collaboration strategy planning. You may have Slack as your all in one messaging app and Microsoft Teams as your all in one communication platform.

Making the list was both Slack and Skype. These are both all in one solutions in their own right. But, ask yourself those three questions again…

Do they work best when they are left alone?

Is the experienced enhanced when you plug something else in?

Would everyone be productive if they all had the same laptop collaboration app?

Comparing Slack vs Microsoft Teams doesn’t really solve the all in one problem.

Top 20 cloud services

Messaging is the core

At the heart of these collaboration apps is messaging.

The most common function of Slack and Microsoft Teams is messaging. Be it direct messages on Microsoft Teams or sharing information on a Slack channel, messaging – in one format or the other- is the core.

The good news?

No longer do you need to compare these services for messaging.

You could spend weeks, months or – let’s be realistic – even years trying to work out which platform suits the messaging needs of your business.

You could. But, when developing a messaging strategy, there is a much simpler solution. Just use Mio.

When multiple messaging platforms exist in your organization, Mio can provide messaging interoperability by connecting the platforms of your old and new employees across the platforms of their choice.

This means you can finally stop comparing Slack vs Microsoft Teams.

Stop comparing Slack vs Microsoft Teams and use Mio

Mio is simple to set up:

Sync all the chat apps your teams use by creating your Mio Hub

Add all teams, spaces & channels

Team members in your Mio Hub can immediately chat in DMs or groups with members on other platforms

File sharing, threaded messages, reactions and the ability to edit and delete messages are all supported

New channels or spaces are synced in the primary chat platform they prefer to use

If you are interested in exploring these options, we are here to help.

[…] Their comparison of the two messaging players broke down key features that were of importance to HipChat users. Whilst on point for the HipChat community, this was merely one of many articles comparing Microsoft Teams and Slack. […]